The FCC should vacate its order loosening the siting restrictions for FM translators, Prometheus Radio Project said in a petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s February order filed Monday, the effective date of the new siting rules. Prometheus had previously requested a stay of that effective date, but the day came and went with no FCC response to the stay request, a Media Bureau spokeswoman confirmed. “Countless incumbent LPFM stations that are outside the core service area of AM stations will now be severely limited when seeking to relocate within their communities of service because new and relocated FM translators will inevitably box in or short-space them,” Prometheus said in the petition. NAB and several broadcast attorneys opposed the Prometheus petition (see 1704070070). Along with reconsidering the removal of the restriction that translators must be within 40 miles of their transmitter, the FCC should issue a new Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on adequately protecting LPFM stations from being boxed in by FM translators, the petition said.

The FCC draft item eliminating the need for noncommercial educational broadcasters to collect personal identification information from board members (see 1703300066) will still mean those stations need to survey potential board members for other broadcast interests, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Friday. Under the draft, such individuals will need to use the same Special Use FCC Registration Number (SUFRN) for all broadcast interests, and if they have a regular FRN from owning an interest in a commercial station, they will need to use that in the NCE station’s ownership report, Oxenford said. “Noncommercial licensees thus will still need to survey their officers and board members to make sure that they don’t have other broadcast interests, and to coordinate with other licensees in state systems to make sure that the same SUFRN is used.”

A Prometheus Radio petition challenging new FCC FM translator siting rules doesn’t spell out how the rule will limit low-power FM stations, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post, a copy of which was emailed Thursday. “The new rules do not increase the permitted power of translators or in any other way significantly change their preclusive effect,” Oxenford said. “Who is to say whether a translator will impose greater restrictions on LPFMs from their current locations or from locations authorized under the new rules?” For Prometheus to get its requested stay of the April 10 effective date of the translator rule, it needs to show there will be irreparable harm, that the stay is in the public interest, and that it’s likely to win its appeal, Oxenford said. Even if the stay isn’t granted, AM stations will have to act knowing “the theoretical possibility that any construction permit granted in reliance on the new rules could be overturned if the appeal is successful, and weigh with their counsel the likelihood of this risk arising when constructing new translators in reliance on these rules,” Oxenford said. Earlier this week, another radio lawyer was critical of the request (see 1704050065).

Raycom Media will buy WVUE-DT New Orleans from Louisiana Media Co., owned by New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, said Raycom in a news release Tuesday. Raycom has “managed the station for Louisiana Media Company,” since 2013, it said. Raycom said it plans to continue its partnership with him and his team.

A New York City radio station agreed to a $10,000 settlement with the FCC Media Bureau over indecency violations, said a consent decree released Wednesday. The allegations against WSKQ(FM) involve Spanish phrases the station argued were mistranslated. “To resolve the matter without further expenditure of scarce resources, the Bureau and Licensee have negotiated this Consent Decree to provide for Licensee to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $10,000 and for the Bureau to terminate its Investigation,” said the order. The Parents Television Council praised the settlement, in a release. “We are heartened that the FCC under its new chairman, Ajit Pai, has moved so quickly to establish its commitment to enforcing the broadcast indecency law,” PTC said. “While we would have preferred to have the FCC adjudicate this case on its merits, clearly the enforcement bureau deemed the complaint worthy of action,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

Prometheus Radio Project’s petition against the FCC’s recent action loosening siting rules for FM translators “rests upon a wholly erroneous foundation,” said Womble Carlyle radio attorney John Garziglia in an commentary in RadioInk Wednesday. Prometheus requested a stay of the new rule’s April 10 effective date because it could cause low-power FM stations that need to relocate to be without any options (see 1704040046). Existing radio stations have never been “given a buffer zone against a wholly conjectural possibility of a transmitter site loss,” Garziglia said. Though Prometheus cited concerns that hundreds of translator applications would be filed on the effective date, Garziglia said that’s overstated, since few stations will be in a position to take advantage of the rule change. “It is unlikely that there will be even several dozen AM stations on April 10th proposing to extend their FM translator’s 60 dBμ contour further than 40 miles from the AM transmitter site,” he said. “Creation of a new protection for LPFMs that might lose a transmitter site is wholly unwarranted.”

PMCM’s request for a writ of mandamus for its years-long effort to transmit a signal on virtual channel 3.10 was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday, in a court order. The FCC ruled PMCM can’t use virtual channel 3.10 for WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, because Channel 3 already is assigned to another station in the area (see 1607260059). PMCM “filed applications for review with the Commission seeking the same relief it requests in its mandamus petition and has failed to show” that the FCC process isn’t “an adequate remedy,” the D.C. Circuit said. “To the extent petitioner asserts the Commission has unreasonably delayed in acting on the applications for review, it has not demonstrated the agency’s delay is so egregious as to warrant mandamus.” The court didn't reject the petition on the merits, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Donald Evans, who represents PMCM. The order also says the D.C. Circuit would take the matter up again if there's "further significant delay," Evans noted.

NAB looks forward to working with new RIAA President Mitch Glazier on "finding common ground on issues of importance to our respective industries," said NAB CEO Gordon Smith in a news release Monday. Earlier that day, RIAA said Glazier will be promoted to chairman-CEO effective in January 2019; Chairman-CEO Cary Sherman retires, effective at the end of 2018 (see the personals section of the April 4 issue of this publication). NAB and RIAA have disagreed on music royalty issues. The groups declined further comment Tuesday.

The FCC should issue an immediate partial stay of its order loosening placement requirements for FM translators, said Prometheus Radio Project in an emergency petition posted Tuesday in docket 13-249. The order, unanimously approved at commissioners' Feb. 23 meeting (see 1702230060), takes effect April 10. “The premature grant of new translator applications will cause immediate and irreparable harm” to low-power FM licensees, Prometheus said. “Incumbent LPFM stations will thereafter be severely limited in seeking to relocate within their communities of service because these new FM translators will box in or short-space them," Prometheus said, and LPFM licensees that need to relocate “will be forced to shut down or to relocate to a distance that could preclude them from reaching their established community audience.” The group will seek reconsideration of the translator order, which it said is arbitrary and capricious because the order’s elimination of the 40-mile restriction on how far a translator can be located from a transmitter “was not a logical outgrowth” of the Further NPRM that preceded the order. The order doesn’t address possible impacts to LPFM, the advocate for such stations said. “It is apparent that the Office of Management and Budget shares this view, because it determined that the final version of the Order deviated so substantially from the proposal that its preapproval under the Paperwork Reduction Act was deemed insufficient,” the group said (see 1703080023).

If the FCC reinstates the UHF discount, it should adopt a similar discount for VHF stations, PMCM said in an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-236, though it also said the UHF discount shouldn't be restored. “Technological change has eliminated the justification for the discount,” the firm said. “UHF stations are now superior to VHF stations, with VHF facing disadvantages comparable to those UHF faced with analog,” the filing said. “Granting a discount to UHF stations but not granting one to VHF’s is plainly irrational under these circumstances; the very factors that would support a UHF discount support a VHF discount even more.” Restoring the discount without providing one for VHF would be “an insurmountable disadvantage” for VHF stations, the broadcaster said. Commissioners tentatively are set to vote April 20 on restoring the UHF discount.